Racing: Harness Jewels will remain at Cambridge

Photo / NZPA

Cambridge is the big winner and 5-year-olds the losers as the future shape of the Harness Jewels was decided yesterday.

Harness Racing New Zealand has confirmed Cambridge will continue to share the annual winter carnival with Ashburton, the venues racing alternate years until at least 2017.

However, in a return to the usual Jewels format, the 5-year-old races which debuted this season will be scrapped.

The 5-year-old races were always controversial, with critics arguing they put money into the pockets of the elite-class horses who already race for millions when it should be targeted towards lower-grade horses.

That fire gained fuel when millionaire pacers Terror To Love and Bettor Cover won the 5-year-old pacing divisions last month, although the 5-year-old trot did go to a relative battler in Charlemagne.

HRNZ will offend few trainers by deciding to can the 5-year-old divisions, in a purely financial decision, which also means the whole Jewels meeting can be held on one day, which will be May 31 next year.

Cambridge were never likely to lose the Jewels and have done a solid job in maintaining the momentum of the day after the initial novelty wore off.

Keeping the $1.2 million raceday is a huge positive for harness racing in Waikato but there are plenty who believe the raw quality of racing is better at Ashburton where the times are faster and draws matter less.

Meanwhile, two of the failures of the latest Jewels Day bounced back to the winners' circle in Victoria on Sunday, when Kiwi trotter Daenerys Targaryen and Aussie hero Blitzthemcalder won the group one races at Maryborough. Daenerys Targaryen outstayed favourite I'm Stately in the A$50,00 Redwood Trot, a rare standing-start juvenile feature, for trainer-driver Mark Purdon.

Blitzthemcalder, who showed enormous talent when campaigned in New Zealand in autumn, overcame an early skip to sit parked and win the Victoria Trotting Derby.

He was initially expected to cross the Tasman when trainer Ross Payne moves to join Purdon as stable foreman next month, but will, instead, stay in Victoria for his 4-year-old season.